Regulation of Financial Services Forum 2014
Tuesday,
January 28
9:00 am -
5:00 pm
Leading regulators, legal authorities and corporate counsels from the financial industry gather to examine the Volcker Rule in depth, as well as other top of mind legal issues facing the world of banking and finance.

Credit Default Swaps (CDs): Avoiding Litigation
Tuesday,
February 25
9:00 - 10:30 amCredit default swaps (CDS) have become a multi-billion-dollar market within a decade of their genesis. Surging defaults on the underlying investments amid the recent financial crisis have led to increased litigation. This panel will discuss how CDS contracts work, how they are traded, their risks and benefits, and related litigation.

Hedge Funds
Wednesday,
March 5
9:00 am -
1:00 pm
The panel will highlight tax issues and benefits that arise from the utilization of an LLC, discuss new developments in the area of LLC law and provide real-world examples of the use, structures and operations of LLCs in specific businesses and contexts. This program's updated content will provide CLE credit to all attendees, even if they previously attended.

Mortgage Notes & the Future of Home Finance
Wednesday,
April 23
6:00 -9:00 pmThe financial crisis has put a tremendous amount of stress on the legal infrastructure for residential mortgages and securitization, and has raised a number of technical and political questions about the adequacy of the current establishment and the potential need for reform.

Proposed Home Mortgage Bridge Loan ActThe Banking Law Committee has proposed the Home Mortgage Bridge Loan Act, which would institute a program that will provide temporary and repayable financial assistance through bridge loans to homeowners experiencing temporary difficulty in paying their mortgage loans through no fault of their own. The program is modeled after Pennsylvania's highly successful Homeowners' Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program ("HEMAP"). HEMAP has a track record of over 25 years of success, with around 80% of HEMAP loan recipients having retained their residences and repaid their mortgage loans in full. The Committee has been building support for the measure and educating legislators and other interested parties about the benefits of the program for distressed homeowners. The bill was introduced into the New York State Senate at the end of session last year (S.5035) and the Committee will be working to have a companion bill introduced into the Assembly. To read the Committee’s reports on this proposal, please visit their committee page.

Audited Financial StatementsIn a joint letter to the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the Committees on Financial Reporting and Securities Regulation expressed concerns regarding the proposed auditing standard entitled The Auditor’s Responsibilities Regarding Other Information in Certain Documents Containing Audited Financial Statements and the Related Auditor’s Report (PCAOB Release No. 2013-005). Though the committees support the proposal’s objective of improving the usefulness of financial reporting, the letter urges that management be given the opportunity to describe its business activity as management sees fit, constrained by the obligations to tell the truth and otherwise fulfill legal requirements, and maintains that the installation of an additional layer of evaluation and reporting would be counterproductive.

Pay Ratio DisclosuresIn a letter to the SEC, the Committee on Securities Regulation offered comments on the Commission’s Pay Ratio Disclosure Proposal, which is meant to enhance comparability of disclosure across companies. In particular, the letter urged that: 1) companies should be permitted to exclude non-U.S. employees for the purposes of calculating the median; 2) companies should be permitted to exclude seasonal, temporary, part-time and short-term employees, provided that companies disclose the number of employees included and excluded; 3) companies should be permitted to omit employees of entities acquired during the year; and 4) that the Commission should clarify that companies can use reasonable methods of choosing a median employee if the chosen method yields multiple median employees.

Committee Involvement--It's Never too LateCommittees are how the City Bar’s work gets done. Working on a committee can give you great experience while opening up a number of career doors, some you may not even anticipate.

A full list of the City Bar committees along with a brief description of each and an application form can be found on the City Bar’s website. As a number of City Bar committees have more applicants than available slots, please consider applying to more than one committee.